It's a big week for laptops, thanks to the IFA going on in Europe right now, and Toshiba's addition is the Portege Z830 series. Toshiba says the system is part of Intel's new ultrabook platform, and at first glance it shares some common traits with the Lenovo IdeaPad U300swe saw earlier in the week.

The Portege Z830 has a magnesium alloy case and weighs around 2.5 pounds and is 0.6 inches thick -- Toshiba says that's about 20-percent lighter and 40-percent thinner than the Portege R835, which is one of our favorite current 13-inch laptops.

Toshiba

As an ultrabook, the Z830 uses SSD memory, in this case a 128GB drive and a selection of second-gen Intel Core i-series processors. The keyboard is both backlit and spill-resistant and, like most of Toshiba's other laptops, some of the USB ports support sleep-and-charge technology, which allows them to be used for charging phones, media players, and other devices, even when the laptop is turned off or sleeping.

Hurricane Irene kept the Portege Z830 out of New York this week, but our San Francisco colleague Donald Bell got to check out one of these new systems in person, as seen in the video above.

The Toshiba Portege Z830 (the consumer targeted version will be called the Z835) will be available in November, starting at under $1,000.

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Dan Ackerman leads CNET's coverage of laptops, desktops, and Windows tablets, while also writing about games, gadgets, and other topics. A former radio DJ and member of Mensa, he's written about music and technology for more than 15 years, appearing in publications including Spin, Blender, and Men's Journal.
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